This is the gateway leading to the stable yard of an old Henley pub, The Broad Gates. The building is ancient, as you can see from the medieval doorway on the left. The reason it is on this guided tour of Henley in the Second World War is that it leads through to the factory of an engineering company, Stuart Turner. The company is still here today.

Stuart Turner was then an engineering company specialising in producing small pumps and engines, just the sort of things needed in large numbers for boats, ships, and tanks and to generate electrical power to run radios and pumps. Fortuitously, a new larger factory had been built in the town just before the war (1936) with a machine shop, its own design shop and foundry. So Stuart Turner could cope with large orders for specialised equipment for all sorts of military uses. The staff doubled to about 160. The roof of the factory was camouflaged early in the war so that it would be harder for bombers to spot from the air.  The factory was never bombed, but on the site were a couple of air raid shelters for their own staff, and male employees formed their own company of the local battalion of the Home Guard (more on the Home Guard at Stop 7).  Women began working in the factory in jobs previously done by men.  Known as the “Girls Shop”, these women put together the small engine parts. One example of Stuart Turner’s wartime products was a robust little marine engine which powered small craft carried by fishing boats from the Shetland Islands to Norway, then under German occupation, helping to support the resistance against the Nazis. The steady stream of products which came out through these gates for use by all three of the armed services was one of the town’s most tangible contributions to the war effort.

Production of military equipment was one of Henley’s major contributions to the war. Over Henley Bridge and half a mile or so along the Wargrave Road, just on the left by General Conway’s bridge and the traffic lights there was a guarded driveway off to the left leading to caves tunnelled into the chalk hills.  These caves hid a large underground factory. Components for Spitfire fighter aircraft, vital to Britain’s air defences, were manufactured there. Aircraft were assembled and flown off from an airfield, RAF Henley, which then existed on the flat land at the top of Remenham Hill. Women living in the town also had wartime jobs there and helpfully, women with families could fit in a shift and get back from their factory work in time to feed their families.